For a while now, there has been one clear war in the mobile phone market, and that’s iOS vs Android. Over the last year or so, however, Samsung has sprung from the ground to become one of the top single phone manufacturers, taking the spot from HTC and Apple. This has ignited a new flame in the ongoing smartphone wars, HTC vs Samsung. Recently, both companies have announced their 2013 Android flagships. For HTC, it’s the HTC One, and for Samsung it’s the Galaxy S4. The latter of those devices is rather unchanged from its predecessor, aside from the screen size being increased slightly and the power being beefed up under the hood. The HTC One, however, is a complete remake for HTC. They are starting from scratch, looking to take back the crown as the top Android manufacturer.
But, Samsung has obtained something that no other manufacturer aside from Apple has, and that’s a devoted following of users. Some may call them fanboys. One of the most vocal group of fanboys, are of course, the iOS fanboys. They’ve been known to criticize nearly everything Google and Android manufacturers do. As HTC One reviews start to filter out, however, Samsung fanboys have become more and more vocal. Go to almost any HTC One review and read the comments, and you’ll notice that most of them are from disgruntled Samsung fanboys.
Usually, when fanboys start to emerge from their dungeons with nothing but negative comments, it’s a sign that they feel threatened. We saw it with Apple fanboys when Android started to improve and Samsung caught on, and now the same thing appears to be happening with Samsung fanboys. The HTC One has been receiving extremely positive reviews from the press, while Samsung has been receiving a fair amount of criticism because of the all-plastic design still found on the Galaxy S4. Samsung fanboys have started to nitpick about the smallest thing that HTC did “wrong” with the One. This includes things such as the Ultrapixel camera, lack of microSD card slot, and a nonremovable battery.
It all comes down to this though: competition is good. If the HTC One proves to be successful, maybe it will show Samsung that it’s hold on the Android market isn’t as strong as it thinks. Maybe it will show them that they will not be able to stick with the same all-plastic design while HTC is making all aluminum devices.